


Inheritance

by corvidae9



Series: The Great Galactic Baby Boom of 2187 [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Gen, next gen adventure, shepard-vakarian offspring, we all knew eleanor was going to inherit a potty mouth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-22 23:02:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10706979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corvidae9/pseuds/corvidae9
Summary: Follow up toBoom. Thirteen years down the road, a group of teenagers end up having to stop a devious plot… because no one lays a hand on a Shepard-Vakarian’s little brother or her best krogan and lives to tell the tale.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven’t read _Boom_ , it isn’t technically compulsory, but it _will_ explain who all these kids are. This is my action-adventure love letter to both that AU and the totally inappropriate, inadvisable, inexplicably dangerous teen adventure movie genre.

**November 2204**

“Target is in sight, El,” said the diminutive human teenager into the comms on the omnitool on her right arm. Her blue eyes were locked on the adolescent asari across the plaza, who was engaged in a close-up conversation with a teenage male human of some indeterminate origin. 

“Copy that, AK. Looks like that gross meathead she’s with is going in for the grope. It’s time to send in the kid,” came the reply over her comms. Annika’s lip twitched in conjunction with a raised, bright red eyebrow in an unconscious mirror of her mother’s very similar expression; generally it was the one that indicated impending doom. Her other hand was holding firmly to that of a smallish turian boy who despite being five years her junior was almost as tall as she was, and she was not shy about being annoyed about that. 

“Damian, you remember what we talked about, right?” she asked the little turian. 

“Yep. Go to Gisele. Tell her it’s her watch. Hold her hand and don’t let go,” he said dutifully, his eyes shining with adoration for his older sister. “Also, that I have credits for ice cream.” Annika rewarded him with a smile. 

“Good boy. And?”

“Don’t tell mom and dad,” he said with a nod. She kept smiling.

“Perfect,” she said, her eyes darting to the asari and back to her brother. “Alright-- you’re on in three, two--”

“Annika, why shouldn’t I tell mom and dad?” he asked. “Dad says you should always tell the truth, even when it’s hard to do and you’re afraid Mom will give you that look she gives you. That one! The one you’re giving me right now.”

Annika realized that she had narrowed her eyes at Damian and was already standing hipshot, knowing that’s exactly what their mom looked like when she was about to chew you out, and didn’t want to think about what that meant.

“...Because we’re just having a fun game with Gisele and it’s no big deal,” she improvised. “They won’t care about it by the time they get home anyway.”

“Oh,” he said. “Ok.”

Annika patted his shoulder. “Go on. It’ll be fun.”

“Ok, bye then,” he said, and wandered off into the sparsely populated courtyard of Apollo’s Cafe, making a beeline for the asari girl.

“We’ve got a lock,” Annika murmured into her omnitool, watching as the boy ran up to Gisele and hugged her enthusiastically. The asari hugged him back, while scanning the crowd around over his head, and Annika knew the moment he delivered his lines when her smile turned into a frown, and she mouthed a word that looked suspiciously like Annika’s name.

“Scoped and dropped. Meet me at the rendezvous,” Annika said with a grin and dashed off across the terrace. She took the stairs up two at a time, quite a feat for someone who had barely broken five feet in height, and dashed down the walkway around a C-Sec officer that muttered, “Walk!” with little to no actual shits given. As she turned the corner to the elevators, Annika nearly collided head on with another, slightly taller, teenage girl in cargo pants and a tank top bearing the logo for some band or another that would have been right at home on earth of two hundred years past. Her chestnut hair was dyed through with bright pink streaks and she was grinning madly. 

“We’re free, biiiiiitch!” she said, holding drawing out the ‘i’ sound as she held a hand up for a high five. “Let’s go find something interesting to do.”

Annika met the high five and laughed hard, flushed with victory and rebellion. “Hell yeah,” she agreed and Eleanor quirked an eyebrow at her.

“Whoa, now, AK. First you ditch your responsibilities, and now you’re swearing?” Annika looked a little embarrassed, but Eleanor only whistled low. “I mean, I figured we should probably start slow today, but you’re catching on pretty quick.”

Both their omnitools began pinging a call from one Gisele T’Soni, and they exchanged a look. Annika hit ‘ignore’, but Eleanor responded with a brief vid message that consisted of a hastily-cobbled-together clip of Annika saying “Hell Yeah” over an animated cartoon varren humping an omnitool. 

“El, wait-- what is that?!” said Annika as she saw it briefly flash past, but Eleanor had already snapped it shut and grabbed her forearm. 

“Let’s get out of here and down to the Wards.”

 

###

 

“I can’t believe you,” said her mother with _that_ tone, standing… hipshot with her jaw set just the way Annika had imagined her earlier that day. Her father stood arms crossed, his large frame taking up most of the doorway behind her mother, as though he were lying in wait to be Good Cop-- which to be fair was generally their shtick. “What were you thinking?”

“That I’m thirteen years old and I’m tired of being the default babysitter!” Annika shouted at her, going from zero to raging beast at lightspeed. “I just wanted to go have fun today and instead I got put on baby duty and it’s not fucking fair.”

“Watch your language, young lady,” said her father from the doorway, his tone mild but warning.

“You still have responsibilities to this family,” said her mother. “Responsibilities to your brother that you don’t get to pawn off on someone else just because you want to hare off with Eleanor.”

“Who said anything about El?” said Annika, loathe to give up her co-conspirator.

“The bad dye job and the newly-pierced eyebrow, maybe? Because god help the dumbass that decided to mutilate _my_ minor child without parental consent, but I imagine if anyone would know someone dumb enough, it’d be Eleanor.”

“That’s so unfair! It’s my hair! And this isn’t about you!” 

“She’s got a point though, pumpkin,” said her dad, and Annika lost it. 

“STOP TREATING ME LIKE A LITTLE KID!” she cried, her hands and forearms glowing blue with static electricity as she gestured emphatically with balled-up fists. 

“Then stop acting like one,” said her mother calmly. 

“Well maybe you should have sent me to Grandpa instead of sending my _baby_ sister!” Annika growled and swept her arm in a violent arc, sending a sofa cushion smashing into the wall and exploding in foam bits.

“Good choice with the pillow,” said her dad, lazily. “I always hated that pattern.”

Annika had been at the point of crying in frustration, and yet, she couldn’t help a small snort at her father’s antics. Especially when her mother turned slowly on her heel to fix him with a baleful glare that said he was next on her shitlist. 

“It’s just not fair,” she said in a shaky voice. 

“What’s not fair?” said her mother. “That you have everything you could possibly need or want and all you have to do in return is not be a fuckup and watch your brother for two weeks?” Her dad stepped up and set a hand on her mom’s shoulder just as Annika’s eyes widened, a sure sign of an impending explosion.

“What your mother is trying to say is that if you have a problem with your responsibilities, you need to negotiate them, not ditch them. You still have to contribute, but we’re not unreasonable. And you’ve spent every other break with grandpa for the last three years.” Annika was glaring at her mother, who in turn was glaring at the three-fingered hand on her shoulder while her father calmly added, “We do love you, you know.”

“Do you?” Annika bit off, even though she knew in her heart that was totally unreasonable. “Is that what you call this?” 

“Yeah, actually,” her mother sighed, tired. “Just-- go to your room. We’ll settle this later.”

Annika made a disgusted noise and stomped her way up the stairs.

“Think the Hierarchy will take her early?” Shepard muttered to Garrus as he leaned over and wrapped his arms around her shoulders.

“Nope. You wouldn’t let her go anyway,” he rumbled in her ear.

“I wouldn’t,” Shepard agreed. “Nor will I send her to Wrex or sell her to the Shadow Broker. I worked too hard for that kid to give up now.”

“I’m partial to her myself,” said Garrus. “She reminds me of my favorite person in the galaxy.”

“Shuddup,” Shepard said with no heat whatsoever. 

“No really, the resemblance is uncanny,” he said. She smacked at the side of his head.

“Then go do that magic,” she wriggled her fingers, “where you convince an angry biotic redhead not to kill all the things.” Garrus kissed the top of her head.

“I’m on it.” 

 

###

 

“Annika!” her brother whispered as Annika stomped past his door. 

“What?!” she answered, angry and embarrassed and ready to turn it all on her pesky, tattling little brother.

“I’m sorry you got in trouble because of me,” he said earnestly. “Gisele was super nice like always, and I bought her ice cream like you said to, but then she called mom anyway.”

Annika was trying hard to stay mad at the brat, but he looked so pathetic standing there in his doorway as though this were all his fault.

“Maybe tomorrow you can just leave me here?” he said. “I can watch vids and build models, and I won’t tell, I promise.” 

“I’m not--” She looked hard at him, her anger dissipating almost entirely into feeling like a total pile of varren vomit. “I’m not leaving you alone, booger,” she said with a sigh. “I just needed a break today.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, looking down at his bare, shuffling, taloned feet. “I think your hair looks pretty all black.”

“Hey,” she said. “Hey, c’mere.” He cautiously trudged up to where she stood in the hallway, still looking down, and she put her arms around him. “You were totally safe with Gisele, but I shouldn’t have left you. Shepard-Vakarians stick together, alright? Even if you’re my annoying baby brother. So don’t apologize.”

“I love you, Annika,” he said without reservation, and she was powerless to resist him. 

“Me too, booger,” she answered, then straightened up. “Go do something fun. I’mma go break stuff.”

“K,” he said with a shrug and slipped back into his room. 

Surprisingly stealthy for a nearly-seven-foot-tall turian, Garrus waited on the stairs until Damian’s door was shut before closing the distance between himself and his eldest child. 

“Damian thinks that the galaxy rises and sets around you, you know,” Garrus rumbled quietly. Annika froze in place, shoulders set in a guilty half-hunch. “Which of course you know, because you used to carry him around and tell people he was your pet brother.”

“Daaaad,” she said. “Can we not?”

“You’re the eldest, Annika,” Garrus said. “It’s your job not to kill your siblings, and set an example by not making your mother’s head explode. Which sounds crazy, I know, because I was an eldest and look where it got me.” Annika rolled her eyes at him.

“I”m not going to give you the turian familial responsibility speech. You know it well enough.” she watched him with some surprise; that’s exactly what she had been waiting for. Instead her father half-crouched to look her in the eye as he settled a hand on her shoulder. “I’m just going to remind you that whenever you want to be pissed off at a thing, we can go to the range and I will let you shoot the crap out of anything and everything until you’re done. Hell, I’ll even teach you to shoot the Mantis once you can hold the thing up.”

“And the Widow?!” she said excitedly, forgetting for a moment to be angry.

“Yeah, no. Nice try though,” he said. “My point is that you’re right. It’s not fair. You didn’t get a say in your birth order, and you’re stuck being the responsible one. Damian as the youngest will apparently never do any wrong, and Lauren gets to sit in the middle and be jealous of both of you. But it’s your job to be the leader and the example, and if you’re going to do a thing, you need to do it right. Not for anyone’s sake but your own.”

Annika looked down and muttered, “That was kind of the turian responsibility speech, dad.” Still, she wrapped her arms around him and held on tight.

“I guess it kind of was,” he agreed, hugging back. “I must be getting old.” After another minute, he patted her shoulder. “Go on. I’ll ping you for dinner, alright?”

With that, she felt lighter, if not less stupid. Annika still shoved the door to her room open, peeved and faintly embarrassed, only to have her scowl melt into confusion and then a huge grin.

“K-Shep?” she said incredulous and giddy at the same time. A gangly, extremely young krogan in street clothes sat cross-legged with a book in the middle of Lauren’s bed. She looked up and grinned hugely right back. 

“Hi! Mom and Dad sent me!”

“K-Shep!” Annika yelled and barrelled into the krogan who was just beginning to unbend her legs and sit up, sending them both flopping back onto the bed in a laughing pile of adolescent limbs.

“It’s just ‘Shepard’,” said the krogan, trying to sit up again. 

“Not around here,” said Annika, still laughing. “Too many Shepards. We have to be specific.”

“There are Shepards everywhere, it’s true,” agreed the krogan. Even on the Citadel, most krogans were armored at all times, but this girl was wearing what looked almost like earth civvies, the top somehow altered to zip around the still relatively small hump of her back. “My parents were perhaps a bit enthusiastic in honoring Auntie.”

“Yes, but here ‘Shepard’ is just ‘mom’, and so, you’re K-Shep,” said Annika. The krogan girl made a face and shrugged. 

“That, um. Sounds really dumb out loud. Dad calls me ‘Vhorr’?”

“What’s that mean?” Annika asked.

“It’s um. A thresher maw grub,” said the krogan girl. “It’s kind of gross, and a little weird, since I am literally the last krogan that wants to fight one. I’d rather design a temple for one or something. Anyway, Mordin’s the one busy learning to kill things, so it’s clearly my job to continue to buck our namesakes.”

“If you’re gonna do a job, do it right, I guess,” Annika shrugged as she half-quoted her dad. “If you say so. Vhorr, then?”

“Vhorr,” she agreed, correcting the ‘r’ sound a little. 

“Awesome.”

Annika’s omnitool pinged with a message from her dad. 

_from the squealing, I’d say you found your surprise?_

She ignored it. “I can’t believe they didn’t tell me you were coming. Jerks!”

“Don’t be mad. It was supposed to be a surprise,” said Vhorr. “Mom and Dad want me to go to school here on the Citadel, and Shep-- your mom and dad said I was welcome here. That’s pretty much it.”

“Wait-- you’re staying?” said Annika with a bounce. “That’s so great!”

“Maybe,” said Vhorr. “I’m visiting. I haven’t made up my mind.”

“The Citadel has the best engineering schools,” said Annika, in a wheedling tone. “For um. Schools that have been reconstructed in the last fifteen years.” 

“So does Palaven for that matter, but dad’s not sure about sending me out there alone. Dad, um. Doesn’t think I can take care of myself,” Vhorr said with a shrug. “I guess he’s not wrong. But he and mom figure if I go here, at least I’ll survive long enough to learn things.”

“Ugh. That’s true,” agreed Annika. “Nothing interesting will happen to you with mom and dad on duty.” She sighed. “Lauren’s on Palaven now. Can you believe she’s palling around with grandpa and Aunt Sol while I’m stuck here babysitting for the rest of the school break? So lame.”

“I heard,” said Vhorr with an arched eyebrow.

“Oh god, not you, too.” 

“I like your eyebrow, though.”

Annika made a disgusted sound and threw herself dramatically backwards onto the bed. Her omnitool pinged again and she rolled her eyes as she checked it.

_EL: hey, assbutt. heard you got busted hard._

_AK: jerk. Gisele called mom._

_EL: I know. she messaged me first and said she was gonna_

_AK: why didn’t you stop her?_

_EL: ...it was more fun to rile her all up?_

_AK: dammit el_

_EL: kidding. tried. failed. sent her more humping varrens. she told my mom, too._

_AK: crap_

_EL: yeaaah. no proof i was involved though lol._

_EL: feels bad tho. her and jack are fighting over ‘bad influences’. i’m like, i’ll just be over here hacking your terminal, mothership_

_AK: crap. sorry_

_EL: it’s fine. they’ll get naked and get over it._

_AK: ewwww_

_EL: what they’re adults. you don’t think you parents get nasty on the regular?_

_AK: I HEAR MY MOTHER CALLING AND I HAVE TO GO_

_EL: she’s probably naked. give her a minute_

_AK: I hate you_

_EL: so, again tomorrow?_

_AK: can’t. babysitting. K-Shep’s here though!!!_

_EL: fucking sweet. i’ll come over there, then. we’ll legit study or something._

_AK: no we won’t_

_EL: no we won’t, but it’s cool we’ll think of something. tell her i said hey_

 

“Eleanor says ‘hi’,” Annika said to Vhorr. Vhorr waved awkwardly.

 

_AK: she says hi back. should we invite gisele_

_EL: she’s probably pissed._

_AK: probably. anyway going_

_EL: smell you later_

_AK: plzno_

 

Annika exhaled as though exhausted. “Best worst day ever,” she said. “I’m kind of an asshole, but I had a bunch of fun, my best krogan is here and mom did not kill me. And dad says I can shoot the Mantis if I can hold it. Pfft. I can totally hold it.”

“My mother would have headbutted me into next week for that kind of disobedience.” Vhorr said thoughtfully, tilting her head at Annika. “I guess. I mean, we’re generally allowed to whatever mostly, so it wouldn’t have been about my brothers or something.” She shrugged. “You’re just lucky.”

“I guess,” Annika allowed.

“It wouldn’t be so bad to stay here,” said Vhorr, looking around the room. 

“It would be the best!” said Annika. “I mean, Lauren will be back in two weeks and you would probably get roped into _family responsibilities_ and whatever, but.” Annika grinnned. “We would have fun!”

“Uh huh,” said Vhorr.

 

###


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, Annika stood in a reasonable facsimile of obedience at the door, holding her father’s lunchbox, her mother’s messenger bag, and a mug of coffee. Shepard paused at the foot of the stairs and tilted her head.

“Alright,” she said with a half-smirk. “Who are you and what have you done with my spawn?”

“I’m sorry I was an asshole,” said Annika, holding out the bag and the coffee, “and I will do better today.”

Shepard leaned back and called up the stairs over her shoulder, “Mini-Shepard? You’re staying forever now, just so you know.”

“Yes, Auntie,” Vhorr called back. “As you say.”

“Super excited I get to keep her,” said Annika. 

“Maybe. Hopefully,” said Shepard. The half-smirk morphed into a real smile. “I knew there was a reason I never sold you to the Shadow Broker,” she added, as she took the coffee mug and then pulled Annika into a hug. “I love you, kid, and I get it. Thanks for being there for your brother anyway.”

Annika hugged back, surprised as usual to be almost the same height as her mother, who had always seemed to her to be ten feet tall. 

“Yep. We’re going to take Vhorr to the Commons today. There’s a game thing she wants to see, and I figure Damian might like it too. And we’re going to eat ice cream.”

“Fine. Be careful. Try not to destroy anything important today.” Shepard pulled back a little and gave her an eyebrow. “And do not misplace your brother, am I clear?”

“Crystal, ma’am,” said Annika. 

“And tell Eleanor to get her shit straight because I know where she lives,” added Shepard. Annika snorted a laugh. 

“Um, I forgot. We’re supposed to go there for dinner or something Friday I heard.” 

“Oooh. That should be good,” said Shepard with a smirk. 

“Good? Who’s good? Surely not this ruffian,” said Garrus as he too joined them at the foot of the stairs, leaning in to kiss Shepard while ruffling Annika’s shortened, now-black hair. 

“Stoppit, dad,” she said, shoving his lunch at him. “Here.”

“So, you’re angling for the Widow,” he said, taking the box. Shepard furrowed her brow at him in confusion. 

“No. Just. Being the responsible eldest,” Annika said with a nod. Garrus stopped and looked at her. 

“Mmmhm,” he said, before pulling her into a hug as well. “Good job, then.”

“Time to get out of here, big guy,” said Shepard. “I’ve got some as... really cooperative co-workers to deal with… oh! And so do you.”

“Just on the opposite sides of the Presidium,” he agreed. “Good times.” He booped Annika on the nose as he walked away. 

“Be good, ruffian. Call if you need us.”

With that, her parents stepped out and as the door whooshed shut, she could hear her mother hissing, “What did you say to her?”

Annika let out a breath and pinged Eleanor immediately.

_AK: clear. get your butt over here. I’m making breakfast._

_EL: your mom still pissed?_

_AK: I guess? but there was hugging. it’s fine_

_EL: on my way. don’t poison me._

“Alright, people,” Annika called up the stairs, in an unconscious echo of her mother’s commanding tone. “Wakey wakey! Breakfast in 15!” 

 

###

 

Game Galaxy was the preeminent place on the Citadel to find games, gaming paraphernalia and random other gamers; to do anything including play, watch other people play or watch extranet-based competitions. As such, Annika knew all about it, but as a teenager, had to pretend she found it excessively, awfully boring, and that the semi-finals of RelayCraft that Vhorr was excited about were going to be a terrible, no-good waste of time. 

“This was the plan for the day?” asked Eleanor, casting unimpressed glances around at the assorted nerds of the galaxy, who apparently came in all sizes, races and descriptions. Damian practically bounced up and down with excitement, holding Vhorr’s hand and pointing out various of his favorite things. 

“That’s the new module for WereVarren!” he said, pointing excitedly at a display case as they headed toward the spectator’s arena. “And they’re going to release one more called Cave Varren Ancestral where you have to compete for territory with a set of--”

“Shepard,” whined Eleanor under her breath. “SHEEEEPPPPPAAAARD. I’m so bored. This is so boring.” 

“I’m not _Shepard_ ,” Annika hissed. 

“Fine. A-KAAAAY,” Eleanor tried again. “This is for babies and giant dorks.” Vhorr shot a dirty look over her shoulder at Eleanor, who tried to look innocent. “Can we at least get a snack?” she mumbled.

“Argh!” Annika said, coming to a stop and almost causing the group of salarians behind her to crash into her back. “Yes. Yes, okay fine. Vhorr?”

“We _giant dorks_ are gonna go get seats,” Vhorr answered. “Grab us something, too?”

“Sure thing,” said Annika with a nod, and watched them head off in the direction of the little theater space that the shop referred to as the arena, as she shuffled into line at the concession stand.

“Now’s our chance, AK. Let’s get outta here,” said Eleanor, rubbing her hands together. Annika scowled at her.

“Are you kidding me? Do you have any idea how hard my parents would kill me?”

“Pfft,” scoffed Eleanor. “Your parents like you too much for that. Worst they’d do is send you off to turian military academy.”

“Oh yeah, that’s loads better,” Annika said, still scowling while shuffling dutifully. “Listen, this is my job today, so I’m going to buy some popcorn and a box of those weird things my brother likes, and then I’m going to go sit with my enormous dorks and like it.”

“No you won’t,” said Eleanor. 

“Maybe I will,” Annika said, crossing her arms. 

“You are such a little bitch,” said Eleanor. “One big talking-to and you’re suddenly on the straight and narrow forever?”

“Maybe yeah,” said Annika. “But Damian deserves better than being ditched. And I really missed Vhorr. If she wants to do dorky shit, then I’m totally in. And you’re free to go… I don’t know. Do whatever you want if you don’t like it.” Eleanor grimaced at her, making a face that Annika was internally making at herself just then. 

“Are you _dismissing_ me?” Eleanor asked. “I’m seriously the only friend you have, weirdo.”

“Then act like it!” snapped Annika, steel in her spine as she slapped her credit chit on the counter and slid it forward. “Two popcorns and a large dextro jerky box, and also a bag of sour gummy maws for this idiot here,” she said angrily, jerking her head towards Eleanor at that last bit. “And four giant water bottles. Please.” The human at the counter winced back theatrically and took it.

“Yes _ma’am_ ,” he said, and Annika’s head snapped back to peer at him.

“What did you say?”

“I said, yes ma’am. Coming right up.” He scanned her chit, slid it back and began filling a tray. 

“This is stupid,” said Eleanor, leaving unsaid whether it was the disagreement or the tournament.

“Yes,” agreed Annika. “Can we just--”

“GUN!” shouted a rotund volus, running at top speed on stubby legs, hard away from the arena. “GUUUN!”

The people around the concession stand began to murmur and mill in confusion, wondering if it was a stunt gone wrong, or an actual emergency. Suddenly a new wave of people were running away from the arena in a fearful mob, and faint shouts and screams could be heard. Annika caught sight of the mob over Eleanor’s shoulder and paled. She reached out and grabbed Eleanor’s forearm and pulled her towards the concession stand just in time for the leading edge of panicked gamers to rush past.

“Damian,” breathed Annika. “We’ve got to get to them.”

“Yeah we do,” agreed Eleanor. “Come on.” Eleanor shifted her weight and began to glow, creating a subtle field close around them. “This should keep the worst of of the crowd off of us.”

Annika nodded and they started in the direction of the most chaos. C-Sec officers were arriving at the scene and beginning to try and keep the chaos to a dull, orderly roar, while specialists dove into the edges of the crowd much as Eleanor and Annika were doing. They managed to get past one set of double doors, and Annika picked up the scent of charred plastic. Scattered groups of people were still rushing to doors; the same ones that had been convinced it was a fake or maybe were just terminally stupid and/or nosy, but for the most part the small, round theater that served as an event arena had been emptied.

“There,” hissed Eleanor and the bottom dropped out of Annika’s stomach. A C-Sec officer spoke into his comms two rows over, standing over an ominously still salarian. An asari sat motionless in a seat, her eyes blacked over, and a small knot of humans surrounded a second officer, while a third was clearing the exits, rifle in hand. Annika sidled over to the humans, close enough to hear what was being said.

“Yeah, no, it was definitely a krogan girl in earth-style clothes --so weird-- and a little turian about,” the man gestured to his chest,”this tall. They were sitting right there, and-- god, it was awful.” Annika exchanged a panicked look with Eleanor, who grabbed on to her arm.

“These… men,” said one of the women in the group. “They were in armor. Three, maybe four? We thought they were cosplaying. They came up the aisle and--” she gulped with a distressed sound, “--they said, ‘that’s the one’ and then they grabbed the little turian kid. We yelled to stop, the salarians in front of us told them to back off the kid. He tried to shove one away and they...” she whimpered, “--they shot him. The krogan girl tried to grab for the turian kid, but they shoved a rifle in her face and said ‘you’re coming too’.”

The man finished, “That’s when people started screaming, and then they just-- they took them. I thought they were just gonna open fire, man, like it was my day to die, but they just, dragged the kid and the girl off.”

“That poor little kid,” said the woman. “He was so scared.”

“Alright, ok, we’re gonna need descriptions,” said the C-Sec officer. “You two,” he indicated the two that had been speaking, “don’t go anywhere. Anyone else see anything?” A few of the humans nodded, and then the officer’s voice was raised. 

“How about you two?” It took Annika a moment to realize he was talking to her. She felt as though she herself had been shot, or maybe cracked open and filled with lead. She stood rooted in place, her mouth slightly open, her heart in her throat.

“Nah,” said Eleanor with barely a crack in her voice. “We weren’t paying attention. Mostly asleep until the screaming started, actually.” The officer cocked his head at her.

“You sure about that?”

“Just trying to get out of here, officer,” said Eleanor amiably. He grumbled about mouth-breathing spectators and told them to get gone, and Eleanor shoved Annika back out of the theater the way they had come.

“Shit,” breathed Eleanor. “Shit, shit shit.”

Annika tried to breathe but she felt as though she was entirely underwater. She tried to form a plan, but all she could think of was Damian in trouble and how she’d failed him.

“What the fuck are we going to do?” asked Eleanor out loud. Annika shook herself out. 

“Alright. Dad says a cold trail is a mostly dead one,” she said, trying to stay calm, trying to think it through. She lifted her omnitool and poked at it. A link was established and the same adolescent asari they had been harassing the prior day appeared on the orange-bordered projection screen above it.

“What do you two want?” she said, already frowning. 

“I need you to pull surveillance from the Game Galaxy arena for the last hour,” said Annika. “And I need it now. Please.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” said Gisele, her frown turning into a full-blown scowl. “After what you pulled yesterday--”

“A bunch of mercs just kidnapped Damian and Vhorr --K-Shep--. This isn’t a joke,” said Annika, her voice a thin, hard edge. “We were at the arena. I was getting snacks.”

“You ditched him again, is what you mean, Annika,” said Gisele with recrimination, but her fingers were flying over a console.

“No! I did not! I was buying him those-- those stupid-- jerky things and--” she coughed and took a hiccuping breath, but forced herself to keep it together. “El was with me, Vhorr was with Damian. Three to four armed and armored persons grabbed them. That’s all we know.”

“So call C-Sec, idiots,” said Gisele,, who was beginning to sound genuinely alarmed, “What is wrong with you?”

“Gisele, _please_ ,” Annika pleaded. “I’m sorry about yesterday. We were just being stupid. But my mother is going to kill me. She’ll think…” exactly what Gisele had. That Annika had abandoned her brother again. Worse, so would her father. “Send it all to C-Sec, too, they’re on the scene. But please. Help me.”

“Done,” declared Gisele. “Are you still at Game Galaxy?”

“Yeah, we’re here,” said Eleanor, uncharacteristically subdued.

“I’ll be there in ten,” said Gisele. Annika’s head popped up again. 

“What?” 

“Don’t be slow, ape. I’m sending you footage for a one mile radius correlated by time and location. Put your tiny minds to the task of reviewing it and when I get there we’ll talk. I’m giving you limited remote access to my terminal so that you can keep following whatever you find. Get to the public thoroughfare and then DO NOT MOVE. I will be right there.”

“Ok,” said Annika, but Gisele had already terminated the connection. 

“Geez,” said Eleanor. “We really pissed her off.”

 

###

 

In the arena, the C-Sec area chief, a turian with livid red markings, was reviewing the details of the crime and made a face as he scanned the primary reports. Surveillance video dropped unbidden onto his omnitool from an unknown source and when he saw the opening overhead shot of the arena entrance, and four mercs dragging two very recognizable kids into a large delivery skycar, he couldn’t hit the controls on his forearm fast enough.

“Captain, this is Rimmel. We have a serious problem.”

 

###

 

“We need to swing by my place,” said Annika. Gisele took her eyes off of the lane briefly to shoot her an unimpressed look.

“Are your parents there?”

“No, and that’s why we’re stopping there,” said Annika. “I was the one in charge today.”

“That didn’t stop you yesterday,” Gisele said huffily. “Besides, it--”

“Lay off, T’soni,” said Eleanor from the backseat. “We fucked with your date, I’m sorry. We’ve done worse and vice versa, but Damian was safe with you. He’s not safe right now, nor is K-Shep. Err, Vhorr.” She crossed her arms angrily. “We were just messing with you yesterday. This is serious.”

“Alright,” Gisele said with a sigh. “I just. Still think it might be better if we let C-Sec and our parents handle this one.”

“We will! They are! We just-- need to get there first,” said Annika. Gisele looked unhappy, but nodded anyway. She pulled the skycar onto the empty patio space and popped the door.

“Make it quick. I’ll pull the tracking data Glyph’s been scrubbing on the skycar we saw on the cams.”

###

 

Shepard’s omnitool began pinging in an emergency pattern, much to the consternation of the remainder of the council. She frowned at it much as they were frowning at her as she made the minimal effort of facing away from the board at which they had been standing and arguing. 

“Shepard,” she said. “This had better be good.”

 

###

 

Annika stood at her parents’ weapons locker and took a deep breath. She had to grab something she could actually use well, small enough to conceal but-- 

“Holy crap,” breathed Eleanor. “Look at all that beautiful death. I can’t believe they let you get into this.”

“They don’t,” said Annika. “But it’s keyed to their biosignatures and I happen to share a lot of my genetics with mom. After that it was just a little bypass away.”

“Can I--?”

“ _No_ ,” said Annika with no hesitation. “ _I’ve_ trained with them.”

“What? The mothership has taken me shooting.”

“Uh huh,” Annika said. “What’s that?” she added, pointing at an assault rifle bearing impressive scorch marks.

“Uhhh, a really big gun,” said Eleanor. 

“Wrong answer,” said Annika. “It’s a Vindicator, and it’s my mom’s favorite. That one?” she said, indicating a smaller but just as lethal-looking weapon.

“That’s… Shooty McShootyface, obviously,” Eleanor said, holding her hands up half in surrender, and half in mock-worship. “You made your point, oh great one, daughter of The Shepard. I’ll just stand over here warping stuff.”

“Good,” said Annika, not even rising to the ribbing. She grabbed the Carnifex, stuffed it in the largest pocket of her cargo pants and slammed the heavy door shut, carefully re-engaging the locks. “Let’s go.”

 

###

 

The asari, salarian, turian and krogan councilors stared at Shepard in shocked silence as she terminated the call.

“Shepard, I’m so sorry,” said the asari. “Is there--”

Shepard held a hand up to forestall the inevitable remainder of the conversation, but the huge female krogan ignored the cue.

“Ha!” she exclaimed. “Some stupid asshole is going to pay through the quad!”

“Believe that,” muttered Shepard, already breaking into a run and exiting the room.

“What?” said the krogan with a shrug once all eyes had settled on her. “Krogan women are all for negotiation and peaceful resolution until someone lays hands on our kids. After that, they’d better have made peace with their pitiful gods because the bodies will not be unidentifiable. And they’ll _wish_ we’d sent the men to deal with them.” 

 

###


	3. Chapter 3

“Where are we going?” asked Annika as she dropped back into the skycar. Eleanor vaulted over the side in her typical exuberant fashion and settled into the backseat. Gisele glared at them both.

“The skycar they used was outfitted with tech designed to slip surveillance; essentially low-grade cloaking for doing… gangstery things,” said Gisele, poking at the display in the car. Annika’s stomach flipped over once. 

“They are _not_ gone. Do not tell me we lost them,” she said.

“Please,” said Gisele dismissively. “It’s been slower going than it should be, but Glyph’s got their trajectory narrowed to the old docks.”

“...So let’s go,” said Eleanor, leaning forward to thump Gisele’s seat. “Come on!” 

“Listen,” Gisele said, negligently slapping Eleanor’s hand away. “I don’t think we should.” Annika’s glare bored into her and Gisele held a hand out as though warding it off. “The area is absolutely crawling with… elements we don’t want to mess with, we don’t know exactly who we’re dealing with, or how many they are, and the last thing we want to do is get killed trying to save Vhorr and Damian. We need to call our parents, period.”

“Sure, fine. Drop the data to them and C-Sec with a fifteen minute delay,” Annika said. “But if C-Sec or mom and dad come barrelling in without any information what’s gonna stop those mercs from hurting Vhorr first? We can assume they want them alive, but come on. When has it been about anything but mom? Damian’s got to be a bargaining chip.” Gisele looked unsure, and Annika tried again. “Look. We’ll drive up, see if we can narrow down exactly what building they’re in. If we can get in quietly and figure out the situation, we can pass that on, and hopefully keep everyone alive, ok? We’ll be as safe as we can.”

Dubious, Gisele watched her for a minute longer before pulling away from the patio parking and into the traffic lanes toward the docks. “Annika, if you get yourself killed, your parents are going to kill us, and then Eleanor’s mother will bring us all back so that they can do it again.” Eleanor snorted a laugh.

“Shepaahd,” Annika said in an exaggerated imitation of Eleanor’s mother’s accent. “Your daughter is breathing again. Would you like the opportunity to throttle her, or may I do so first?”

“Actually, Miranda,” added Eleanor, now imitating Gisele’s mother’s airy yet precise language. “I believe that if you allow Shepard the honor, you could spend that time finding ways of punishing your own spawn.”

“Step aside, ladies,” said Gisele, in a more than passable imitation of Shepard’s swaggering, dry humor. “I think I can probably kill them all with a smirk and this fork, and save us all the trouble.”

Annika stared at Gisele for a long moment, then burst out laughing. It seemed like an eternity since she’d laughed, and yet she couldn’t seem to stop. Eleanor reached forward and thumped her on the back.

“Alright, alright. It wasn’t that funny. Just breathe.”

“No, I mean. She does sound like that,” Annika said after another minute. “But she wouldn’t need the fork.”

Eleanor guffawed again as Gisele banked onto the thoroughfare to the docks. She shot a quick glance at Annika to confirm that she wasn’t paying attention, then dropped the data without a delay. 

 

###

 

“I can’t let you work this, Vakarian,” said the area chief. “These are your kids. You are clearly compromised.” To his credit, Garrus was right up in his face and outranked him significantly, and yet Rimmel seemed unmoved and unphased.

“Has anyone located Annika yet?” asked Shepard, interrupting without ceremony after shoving past several officers to arrive on the scene. 

“No,” growled Garrus. “She seems to have dropped off of the face of the Citadel.”

“Miranda,” Shepard all but shouted into the newly-opened connection over her omnitool. “Where’s Eleanor?”

“Oh, probably doing all manner of unsavory things with her ungodly biotics because Jack thinks it’s funny to--”

“Now. Where is she now, do you know?”

“What? No. Last I saw her this morning, she was heading for your place…” Miranda looked down and tapped at her omnitool controls, “...and she’s not answering comms.” Miranda looked up again. “Shepard, what’s going on?”

Liara broke right into the call without any trouble, making the screen split to display both the previous comm and hers. Suddenly, omnitools all around began pinging quietly.

“Shepard, Miranda. I just received an ‘anonymous’ data drop that had to have come from Gisele… and it looks like you’re about to as well.” Garrus rushed up behind Shepard to listen. “Our mysterious informant tracked the skycar that grabbed Damian and mini-Shepard to the old docks; there’s a lot of interference, but someone set a VI to work on it as soon as it happened and it seems to have been able to counter their stealth algorithms.” 

Shepard could hear Rimmel barking into his comms as Miranda obviously scanned through data on her own screen, trying to catch up. Her face immediately telegraphed the moment she understood what was going on, and she moved to begin furiously typing at her console. 

“Where’s Gisele?” Shepard, Miranda and Garrus all asked Liara simultaneously.

“Gisele has gone through great lengths to disguise her car’s signature from me, which would not be impossible to defeat, but unnecessary; given the situation, the fact that she inherited Glyph and he’s locked down working on her terminal at the moment, the fact that your door codes were used within the last half an hour by authorized persons, Shepard, and that both Annika and Eleanor were seen at the Game Galaxy after the incident but didn’t stick around afterward would tell me that they’re all together...”

“...And they’re probably heading for the docks themselves,” said Garrus, slapping a hand on his face and covering his eyes. “Why the hell wouldn’t they call us?”

“I’m gonna kill the shit out of whoever laid a goddamn filthy hand on your kids, Shepard, and if if they even look at El funny, I’m gonna kill the shit out of them again,” said Jack who had just appeared in a third partition of the screen. “Meet you at the old docks.”

“We can’t just go in there and start blowing shit up,” said Shepard. “They have Damian and mini-Shepard, and we don’t know what they want.” 

“Do you think I’m kind of a moron, Shepard?” said Jack, the picture on the other side wobbling as she shrugged her jacket on and checked her sidearm. “You know what, don’t fucking answer that. I’m going over there and I’m going to look around, and if I see our girls, I will send them the fuck home, and if I don’t, I’m going to poke around and see what I can see.” She looked up. “Once the kids are safe, _then_ all those motherfuckers are done breathing. You comin’, Cheerleader?”

“As if I’d let you go alone, you bloody psychopath,” Miranda scoffed. “Shepard?”

Shepard watched as Garrus removed his C-Sec Advisory ID, took a long step to set it on the surface in front of a Rimmel, and heard Garrus asking if he could hold onto it for a while, citing the need to step away for Spectre business. 

“We’re on our way,” she said grimly. 

 

###

 

Gisele had shoved the car’s display at Annika once they were in the vicinity of the old docks.

“Watch that as Glyph updates the location. Tell me when he figures it out. Eleanor, watch the streets and tell me what you’re seeing.”

“Scattered groups here and there; it’s not busy at all,” said Eleanor. “Looks like mostly warehouses, dock workers--”

“Hang a right,” said Annika. “There are some strange communications coming from… that one. Right there. And the trajectories are a match.”

“About five people on the walkway, all told. No one’s really looking too hard,” reported Eleanor. 

Gisele drove past the building in question and put the car down on the public access way a block past their target. 

“OK,” she said as they climbed out of the vehicle. “Casual. We’re just...passing through.”

Eleanor and Annika exchanged a look, but said nothing. All three girls walked slowly but purposefully, eyes open. The weight of the gun in Annika’s side pocket gently thumped against her knee with every step.

“There!” hissed Gisele. “Look at that door over there. Carefully. Never mind don’t look.”

“Too late,” said Eleanor. “The one with the meathead standing too still?” 

“That’s the one,” answered Gisele as they strolled past. “I think we found the place.”

“Ideas?” asked Annika. 

“Call our parents,” Gisele said with more than a hint of annoyance. 

“Noted.” Annika waved her off. “Next.”

“I could… pull the guard out into traffic,” said Eleanor. “He’d probably live. He’s wearing armor.”

“What? No, that’s--” sputtered Gisele.

“Good, I like it,” said Annika. “Maybe fling him at a truck so that the nothing happens to the driver?”

“Yeah, yeah, ok,” said Eleanor. “I can do that.”

“Wait-- are we really attacking someone who might have nothing to do with anything?” Gisele said. “Because-- “ she trailed off in thought, then said, “Glyph, what are the chances that this is the right building?”

“99.8% Miss Gisele,” came the little VI’s voice over Gisele’s omnitool. “Statistically speaking, it’s possible that the sentry is not involved, but that possibility is as remote as your mother not shorting me out once she finds out what you’ve been up to.”

“I’m doing it,” said Eleanor. Annika gave her a clipped nod and they began strolling casually back toward the entrance. Eleanor’s hand began to glow blue as they scanned the oncoming traffic. 

“There,” Annika hissed. “Delivery cab.”

Eleanor looked up, stepped around the corner and without warning grabbed the guard using a powerful biotic pull, ducking as he _whooshed_ over her head and right into the side of the delivery car. He hit it with a sickening crunch, and bounced off onto the walkway, and though the car wobbled, it seemed to recover well enough to set down safely. The unconscious guard’s helmet rolled away and off the edge of the throughway.

“Go, now!” said Annika, and they all rushed to the door. She bypassed it with little trouble and they were suddenly in an ill-lit corridor.

“Now what?” 

 

###

 

“Shepard,” Liara’s voice came in over a private channel. “I can coordinate from here, but…” she trailed off.

“Gisele’s like my own, Liara. You know I’ll get her out of there,” said Shepard as she checked and maglocked weapons onto the hastily borrowed armor she’d grabbed off of a C-Sec officer. Spectre. Fucking. Authority.

“I know,” Liara said, sounding as though she did not in fact know. “But I can be there in ten minutes. Five if I hack the signals.”

“We need you to watch our back and theirs from where you are, and you know it,” Shepard said. She stopped her forward progress and flipped her omnitool to video so that Liara could see her. “I will get them home safe or die trying. I promise you.” She left unspoken the fact that all of that depended the kids being safe to begin with, and that she had no clue what Annika, Eleanor and Gisele thought they were doing or why, but Liara knew all of that at least as well as she did.

“I know you will.” This time Liara sounded more confident. “I’d prefer to have you all back in one piece, though. So be careful.”

 

###

 

Making as little sound as possible, the three girls crept down the corridor. As they approached what appeared to be a junction of corridors, Gisele grabbed Annika’s shoulder. Annika turned and saw Gisele’s eyes widen as she pointed to her ear, then to the end of the hallway.

Annika nodded once and crept forward even more carefully until she could hear a man’s voice. It sounded like a conversation playing out via omnitool, and as she continued to close the distance, the opposite end of the call resolved to the voice of an unidentified woman. 

“--the older kid?” the woman asked.

“No idea. Never showed,” said the merc. “Just the kid and the krogan.”

“Intel says they should have been together,” the woman insisted. “The middle one’s the only one off-world.”

“Listen, I got told to grab the redhead or the little turian shit, both if possible, and either grab or kill any other kids with ‘em. There was no redhead, you got what you got.”

“Fine,” the woman sighed. “Fine. We’re not going to get another shot; it’ll have to be enough.”

Annika moved just a little further up the darkened corridor, eyes on the merc. Eleanor and Gisele hung back, but Annika craned her head around the corner carefully trying to ascertain how many were in the room. 

“I’m gonna have to call you back,” the merc said, and Annika could see he was a relatively large man in nondescript gray and black armor; almost like the RelayCraft federation colors. No wonder the kids at the Game Galaxy thought the mercs had been cosplaying.

“Problem?” the woman asked.

“Nah,” the big merc said with a shrug. “Gotta take a leak.”

“Ugh,” the woman said, and the call must have been cut. He lowered his forearm, then spun with speed Annika never would have suspected. His gauntleted hand grabbed her upper arm and yanked her around the corner, shoving her up against the wall with lightning speed. All Annika could do was grab onto his forearm as he pinned her with his arm across her neck. Her feet dangled, and she was forced to execute an extended pull-up to keep from choking.

“What the fuck are you?” he said with a snort of derision. “What did you think you were going to do?” he taunted, giving her a little shake. Her shaking right hand came off of his arm and she struggled for another gulping breath. He was too pleased with himself to see that right hand scrabbling at her cargo pocket. Annika pulled the Carnifex, almost dropping it more than once, flicked the safety and jabbed it into the space between his armor plates. 

“Shoot you and take my brother back, jerk.”

The merc looked down and had the nerve to laugh. 

“You gonna shoot me, little girl? With a gun the size of your head?” He laughed again. “I could break you like--”

Annika readjusted her aim, pulled the trigger and found herself sliding quickly to the ground, gulping air as the merc howled with pain from the hole in his leg. He pawed at his own gun belt.

“You goddamn well shot me! I’m gonna kill--” 

Whatever he was going to kill was lost as he was sucked upwards into a singularity that Gisele that thrown at him. And _then_ Eleanor threw him against the far wall. It was his turn to slump into a boneless pile, and the three girls stared at him. 

“Shit,” breathed Eleanor. “You SHOT him.”

“That’s kind of what the gun was for,” said Annika, pocketing the still-warm gun once she was satisfied he wasn’t getting up again. Her hand was still vibrating from the kickback and it took several tries.

“...Is he dead?” asked Gisele.

“Maybe?” said Annika. “We kind of hit him hard.” No` one made a move to check.

“Why um. Why didn’t you shoot him in the gut when you had the chance?” asked Eleanor, suddenly sounding her actual age. Annika took a shaky breath.

“I couldn’t,” she answered.

“Oh,” said Eleanor. 

“Let’s get out of here,” Gisele said. “C-Sec--”

“--is gonna be too late if that’s what they’re up against,” Annika finished grimly. “You heard him as well as I did.”

“We may have to do more than shoot for the kneecap if we keep going,” said Eleanor quietly.

“Yeah,” said Annika, swallowing hard. “I know. Let’s go.”

“Wait,” Gisele said, and cautiously approached the fallen merc. She waved her omnitool toward his, poking at her controls for a little bit, then took a deep breath.

“He’s alive, but hurt bad. And I’ve got the data off of his omnitool,” she looked up. “Damian and Vhorr are okay, and I know where they are.”

 

###

 

“I’ve got eyes on Gisele’s car, Shep,” said Jack quietly into her comms. True to her word, she had dropped out of a skycar four long blocks down and had been stalking unobtrusively down the strip the ‘anonymous’ data had indicated. “Transmitting coordinates.”

 

###

 

Based on the information they’d gleaned from the mercs’ communications, Annika, Gisele and Eleanor were standing outside the door that they were sure contained Damian and Vhorr. Gisele held her omnitool up and patched into them once again. 

“Perimeter guards have stopped reporting in,” she whispered “People are getting antsy.”

“Yeah. We kind of beat a couple down,” said Eleanor with renewed bravado.

“But would they only have two?” asked Annika. “You’d think if they were coming for the Shepard-Vakarian kids, they’d have an army.”

“And yet, here we are,” said Gisele icily.

“What? If they’d had an army, we wouldn’t be here,” Annika retorted as she began a bypass. “Ready on the door.” 

Both Eleanor and Gisele were glowing blue by the time the door slid open on a dark room.

“Annika?” said a tiny voice, and she had to fight not to burst into tears.

“Hey, booger. You alright?”

 

###


	4. Chapter 4

“I’m gonna go ahead and assume this is it from the medical evac team on the scene,” Shepard seethed into her comms. “And I thought I told your ass to keep it together.”

“For once, it wasn’t Jack,” came Liara’s response. “They were summoned by a passerby. Apparently someone was found at the edge of the skyway helmetless and bleeding a few minutes before she got there.”

“Yeah, fuck off, Girl Scout,” Jack responded. “I want them in one piece as much as you do.”

Shepard tightened her jaw but said nothing. Garrus squeezed her shoulder and said, loudly enough to be heard by everyone on the channel, “I’m putting the car down up the block. There’s too much going on down there, and we’re pretty recognizable.”

“At this point, I’m not sure it matters,” said Liara. “I’m patched in to local chatter thanks to our anonymous source transmitting comm codes, and I’m hearing-- a call for backup of some kind from the building nearest the disturbance… also, it would appear that C-Sec’s about to report in force. I’m working on decoding the long-range messages we intercepted as well. But something’s gone horribly wrong.”

Shepard swore under her breath as Garrus shrugged and ditched the car in the walkway, sending the few pedestrians scattering. Before she could say anything into the comms, she saw a second car put down in much the same manner maybe fifteen feet away, with Miranda all but leaping from it the moment it stopped. Jack melted out of the group gathering to watch the excitement behind her, caught up, reached out and squeezed Miranda’s hand so quickly, it might not have happened. Shepard and Garrus were already on the walkway, armed and looking fit to kill.

For once, she had nothing to say. Shepard just jerked her head toward the building and the four of them headed directly to the door whose locking mechanism was blinking drunkenly between states of green and red.

 

###

 

Damian barrelled into Annika and grabbed her around the middle. “I knew you’d come. Shepard-Vakarians stick together.” Annika held on tight.

“Annika, we have to get out of here. These people,” said Vhorr, stepping forward into the meager puddle of blue light. The side of her face was bruised and crusted with dried blood. “They don’t want a ransom.”

“Vhorr!” all three remaining girls all but shouted. 

“Goddess,” breathed Gisele as she rushed to her side. “What happened?”

“I tried to fight them, but--” said Vhorr with a hitched breath, shaking her head. “Dad would be so disappointed.”

“Nah,” said Eleanor, stepping forward to put a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “He knows you’re terrible at this stuff. He’d just be glad you managed to stay alive.”

Vhorr let loose a watery little laugh, and Annika shuffled forward with Damian to join the small knot. 

“Let’s just get out of here, OK?” 

The lights came up, revealing a much larger room than Annika expected.

“We were expecting _The_ Shepard, and we get a roomful of kids,” came a disembodied voice from a gallery across the room. “But at least we figured out where the elder Shepard-Vakarian went.” 

Annika shoved Damian into Vhorr’s arms and planted herself between them and the gallery as a smug, armored asari stepped into the light at the balcony and added, “Nice hair.”

 

### 

 

“What the hell?” breathed Garrus as they entered the building and found the merc crumpled against the wall, right where the girls had left him.

“Dead,” said Miranda with a perfunctory scan. “Shot in the knee, but cause appears to be blunt force trauma.” She looked up at the wall and touched an indent there that matched the shape of the dead merc.

“I’m in their channel,” came Liara over the comms. “But it didn’t take much work. They’re-- _broadcasting_.” No one had the chance to answer before Liara added, “Oh, Oh no. Goddess be kind.”

“What?!” Shepard shouted, but she wasn’t the only one. 

“Shepard hurry,” said Liara. “They’re-- all of them. In what amounts to a shooting gallery. Coordinates uploaded based on the room schematics. The mercs claim to be making some sort of _example_ of them. Go. GO!”

As one, the four adults tore down the corridor, weapons hot, beginning to panic only when they encountered zero resistance.

 

### 

 

“Fuck you,” yelled Eleanor, flashing the rudest hand gesture she could come up with.

“Nice,” said the asari. “You must be the Lawson girl. And you of course, would be Gisele T’soni.”

“What Eleanor said,” Gisele answered primly.

“And let’s not forget Urdnot Shepard, the worst excuse for a krogan I’ve ever seen.”

Turning her face away, Vhorr curled more tightly around Damian, who was holding on tight, but still managed to stutter out quietly, “M-m-my mom’s gonna get you for this.”

“Perfect. All of you little untouchable shits in one place,” she said with a feral grin. “Hear me, people. While you suffer and starve, these children live pampered lives on the newly-rebuilt Citadel. While some of you are still sleeping in little better than huts, these children play _games_ and watch tournaments. Seventeen years, and their parents still prioritize you like livestock; what makes their children better than yours? Their homes more important than yours? Some of you might think this is monstrous, but this. This is for the good of the people. Their parents, these so-called saviors need a wake up call--”

“Really?” Annika interrupted loudly. “God, that’s a stupid reason to do this. You wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for our parents. No one would! Maybe you should have spent some of all this energy rebuilding, too.”

“She’s right,” said Eleanor. “You are really terrible at this. At least you could have extorted them for credits, damn. You just sound crazy.” 

“Kill them,” said the asari with a negligent hand wave as she receded from view on the balcony.

 

###

 

Liara screamed Shepard’s name into the comm channel as the mercs in the gallery opened fire.

 

###

 

Annika shouted, “Barriers!” as she threw her hands up, shoving every ounce of power she could through her amp. High energy projectiles bounced off of the purple-blue bubble she’d created, which was bumping up against the ones made by Eleanor and Gisele. 

“On me!” 

Both older girls moved in closer and joined up their barriers to hers, all sweating with the effort of keeping them up against the ceaseless onslaught of small caliber weapons. Annika took a moment to slip her shaking hand into her pocket for the Carnifex, then held it up in front of her, like she’d been taught, using the other hand that was focused on the barrier as a prop for her gun wrist. Smoke --too much for just expended rounds and assorted weapons-- occluded the room, and she couldn’t see anything past the shimmering purple walls of the barrier, but she held the gun on the last place she’d seen the asari and tried to empty her mind of everything but the barrier, the gun, and her body.

Damian whimpered, and Vhorr turned so that he was facing away from the gallery.

“Don’t look,” she whispered. “It’s gonna be ok. Don’t look.”

“Annika,” said Gisele with much difficulty. “I don’t know how long I can hold this.”

“None of us can hold this forever.” Annika grunted out. “Can you back towards the door?”

“We have to try,” gasped Gisele. Annika nodded. Eleanor roared something unintelligible and swiped her hand across her field of vision, and a clatter of armor heralded a break in the shooting. She repeated the motion in the other direction and was rewarded with another clatter and shouts, all while maintaining her portion of the barrier..

“Wow,” breathed Annika as Eleanor continued to shout, angrily calling their parentage into question and casting colorful aspersions on their sexual proclivities. Then the gunfire began again, but no projectiles bounced off of their barrier.

 

###

 

Garrus dropped two of the mercs before he’d fully entered the gallery, as Shepard dispatched a third up close, Miranda took a fourth, and Jack ran down the asari with biotically charged steps that nearly flew her down the corridor. Another set went down hard as Jack vaulted over the cabinets that the asari was attempting to fling into her path.

“Fucking cunt! Not so brave now when you’re fighting fucking adults, are you?” Jack shouted as she began to catch up. “You better hope I don’t fucking catch you, but I gotta tell you--” she said as she leapt up and sprang off of a desk, rolling and using her own throw to boost her an extra foot so that she could land on the fleeing asari.

“It’s not looking so good for you, bitch,” said Jack as she tackled the asari and began to pummel her. “How’s that for an example?” she shouted, still punching as blood began to spatter the rough, industrial carpet.

In the meantime, more mercs than Shepard had hoped stepped up and had their ass handed to them, and every one of them made her want less to look over the railing and see if her kids were in one piece. Instead, she just sighted and dropped; crouched and warped; listened for the reassuring sounds of Garrus’ rifle and prayed to whatever piece of shit deity was out there that she wasn’t going to be the one to find what was left of them.

And then a massive wave of biotic energy washed over the gallery and sent every last leftover merc flying across the gallery like rag dolls, and then again in the opposite direction.

And then, Garrus was vaulting the rail, and the sound of his large, armored body hitting the deck below almost too much to take. Shepard steeled her spine and stood, dispatched one last merc, and then followed him over the side. Much as she didn’t want it, she couldn’t leave him alone with it. Hell, she couldn’t even think it. It _It_. Her kids. Down here where they’d been shot.

Nope. _Shot at._ They were either alive or she was going to lose her goddamn mind. She clamped a hand to her mouth as she moved forward, watching Garrus, and unable make out Liara’s chatter on the comms for the blood rushing past her temples.

It was then that she saw the edges of a barrier through the clearing smoke; a small bloom of hope began to take hold, one that broke fully over her when she heard Annika’s voice. Shepard broke into a run, never having felt so grateful for anything in her life.

 

###

 

Annika counted out ten, but this time the smoke was beginning to clear and she thought she could hear heavy footsteps, meaning that they might not need a rotation to hold up the barrier after all.

“Don’t mess with us, buddy,” she shouted at the gray-shrouded figure. “I _will_ shoot you, and at this range I will _not_ miss.” 

Garrus stepped up to the edge of the barriers, right into Annika’s sights, and guffawed as he put his hands up in submission. 

“Dad?” she breathed, incredulous.

“The Carnifex?” he said, trying for witty and wry, but his subharmonics were screaming relief and worry. “That’s what you went with? Really?”

Annika dropped both the gun and her barrier with a sob and ran at her father, aiming for and hitting center mass.

 

###  
###

 

“Oh my god, you looked like such a badass,” said Eleanor, rewinding the vid to pause it at her favorite part, which was where Annika was standing between her brother and her friend and a pack of mercs, arms outstretched, one hand aiming a gun while the other coordinated a barrier with two other biotics. “Literally, you are like, the biggest badass in the galaxy after your mom and dad right now. Maybe even more. I just can’t with how great this is.”

They were sitting around the downstairs living area of Annika’s house, where they’d just been deposited and warned not to move as the adults congregated in the office. Damian was already sleeping soundly, feet on the couch, head pillowed on Annika’s lap. Lauren’s messages had been landing on Annika’s omnitool nonstop for the past two hours, her sister’s freckled and generally sunny expression twisted with worry and annoyance, with an obviously armed Aunt Sol in the background of almost all of them. Annika began a video message for her.

“Hey Pooper; glad you aren’t here-- we totally almost died, but we’re fine now, see?” she slowly rotated the screen to reveal the people she described. “Booger’s asleep, K-Shep --err, call her Vhorr-- a little tenderized but mostly good; El in one piece after throwing handfuls of mercs while holding up an amazing barrier; Gisele’s all offended, so she’s fine. And me, I was such a badass, ask anyone.” A pillow came flying from Gisele’s direction and pegged Annika in the side of the head, and all she did was offer a goofy smile. “Or just Eleanor. But we’ll tell you the whole story later. Tell Aunt Sol and Grandpa we say ‘hi’. Um, and bring Booger some of those jerky things. Love you, ok?” she waved, cut and sent the message.

From the sound of it, Vhorr was also sending her parents a message, and Eleanor was busy taking selfies with Annika and anyone else she could fit in the background. Annika looked up and narrowed her eyes at the last snap, a photo that by the next day would be making the rounds of the extranet proclaiming the uncanny similarities to her famous mother. At that moment though, all Eleanor could do was laugh and hit ‘post’. 

“Haaaa. That was amazing!” Eleanor held her hand up to Gisele for a high-five that was not returned. Gisele was instead glaring at both of them, eyes slitted. 

“We were almost _killed_ ,” she said. “All of those mercs _were_ killed. In a live broadcast. We don’t even know where their offsite communications were going yet. This is not at all funny.”

“Come on,” said Eleanor, partly cajoling and partly annoyed. “We can sit here and cry about almost dying, or we can laugh that we didn’t.” She waited a beat, then she held up her omnitool, which began playing a clip from the scene in the warehouse, while mouthing along with the miniature Gisele saying, ‘What Eleanor said.’

The real Gisele rolled her eyes, but she did almost smile. 

“They shouldn’t have touched us,” offered Vhorr, her face looking much better after judicious application of medigel and her own quick healing system. “The mercs, I mean. You shouldn’t even try to be a bully if you’re not absolutely certain you’re the biggest, baddest warrior. And once you are, you shouldn’t need to be a bully.” She shrugged. “And if they wanted to challenge Shepard, they should have just done it. Instead they may as well have held up a sign that said ‘Hello, I am seeking death by a lot of violence’.”

“I’m not sure my mother will ever sleep again,” sighed Gisele. “My car has been permanently de-stealthed, my terminal has bugs I can’t even begin to touch, and my father sent a message saying he’s following all the leads mom finds and is going to “hunt and terminate the perpetrators so thoroughly they’ll wish they’d been harvested”.”

“Right,” said Eleanor. “I’m also supposedly not allowed to leave the house unless I’m with one of the parental units, even though Jack’s totally impressed with that throw/barrier thing I made happen.” She shrugged. “So’s mom, she just has to be the hardass.”

“How do they not kill each other?” asked Annika. “I mean, don’t be gross, it’s just weird.”

“Come on,” said Eleanor as though she were explaining to a very small child. “They’re both stone cold rebels; mom just wears better makeup and sounds refined. It’s why she doesn’t actually mind Jack’s ‘bad influence’ on me. She’d just prefer I swear less and be more subtle.” Annika tilted her head in consideration, mind blown. The door hissed open and they all jumped half a foot in the air, even though there were no fewer than half a dozen armed C-Sec officers and an equal number of Alliance special forces soldiers posted all around the apartment. A solid indication that nothing was indeed normal. 

“Pizza delivery,” said the huge marine in N7 fatigues carrying as stack of large square boxes, and Annika cracked a huge grin. 

“Uncle Jimmy!” she said loudly. 

“...and friend,” said the light-armored brunette behind him as she came through the door, carrying what had to have been more provisions. Both were obviously armed. 

Disturbed by the noise and movement of his pillow, Damian rubbed his eyes sleepily. Despite Annika petting his fringe and murmuring apologies, he sat up and looked confused. 

“I want mom,” he said even as he leaned against Annika, who put her arm around him.

“All I got is pizza, kid,” James said, setting the boxes down with a shrug. “Which I agree, is nowhere near as good, but it’s something.”

“I like pizza,” Damian said in a small voice.

“Good thing, because I’ve got a dextro with your name on it, but you gotta get to it before your dad does.” 

Damian scrambled off of the sofa and headed straight for James. He went straight for the blue box that James held open for him, claimed a slice without hesitation and took a giant bite. 

“Me and Vhorr got kidnapped,” he mumbled through his mouthful. “And they shot at us.”

James and Ashley exchanged a look of consternation. 

“I heard, kid,” said Ashley. “You alright?”

“Yep,” he said with a nod. “Annika came to get me. Then mom and dad messed the bad guys up and took us home,” he said with shrug and another bite. “Then Annika and Gisele and Eleanor got yelled at for being reckless and irresponsible.”

Ashley raised her gaze to where Annika was rolling her eyes up in her head, one hand on the lower half of her face. Gisele was flushed a deep blue and Eleanor made a wanking gesture where Damian couldn’t see.

“Well. Yeah. Someone with half a brain might have called an adult or something,” Ashley said pointedly in their direction. “It’s a miracle you’re all alive. _Ladies_.”

“It worked, didn’t it?” grumbled Eleanor. Annika opened her mouth to explain herself, but instead her mother managed to beat her to it as she emerged from the office. 

“It is. Of course, without them, we wouldn’t have gotten there in time at all,” said Shepard, her sharp gaze fixed on Annika, leaving unsaid the fact that Damian and Vhorr might not have survived the experience. “So even though it was inadvisable, dangerous, and by all accounts incredibly stupid, I’m pretty sure we owe them one.” 

Annika stared, dumbfounded. Was her mother… _defending_ her?

“Besides,” Shepard went on, the corner of her lip quirking upward, still watching her eldest. “She’s had bad examples when it comes to reckless heroism.”

“Product of her environment?” said James with a snort of laughter and an exaggerated shrug. “Yeah, no, I’ll buy that.”

“I’m just saying, I’ve got a lot of experience as the eldest, and _I_ would’ve gotten my ass kicked for a stunt like that,” said Ashley with a shrug, using her now considerable experience as an aunt to know when to shut the hell up. 

“Come on, Lola Junior,” said James. “You get first pick.”

 

###  
###

 

The next forty-eight hours felt like years of statements and debriefings; of parents holding their offspring close and glaring death at reporters who wanted to know more about the broadcast. Of everyone they’d ever met having seen a vid of the whole incident, from the girls busting into the room with Damian and Vhorr, through to the moment that Annika went crashing into Garrus, thanks to the mercs’ attempt at an open-band broadcast and Liara shutting it down, respectively. Of scrambling to trace bodies of dead mercs, and communications and paper trails and credit transfers; of every council race extending their official relief that the children had been recovered safely. 

Every known mercenary band offered eager assurances that they’d had nothing to do with the kidnapping; that if they heard anything at all they would turn over on the perpetrators in a heartbeat-- apparently no one wanted to be on the receiving end of what Archangel might do to would-be child-killers now that he too had Spectre status. Even Aria had made a point of contacting them. Of course, she’d called Eleanor directly to offer her a job on Omega, but that was beside the point. 

The point was that the galaxy had seen a handful of teenagers hold off a gallery full of mercs while their near-legendary parents resolved the situation with a full measure of finality. That a hundred different idiots with similar ideas were busy scrapping them, and that a few hundred thousand teenagers out in the galaxy were suddenly feeling as though they too might be able to make a difference, and that they too had a new set of heroes.

...and importantly, that anyone that had associated with the mercs in question was about to be visited by an angry Prothean, a Justicar, several Turians, and/or at least two Krogans, and no one could say which would go worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damian and Vhorr received a literal crate of gifts from the management of Game Galaxy, with best wishes and promises to upgrade security. The kids sent them a recording stating, “I’m Damian Shepard-Vakarian and I’m Urdnot Shepard, and this is our favorite store on the Citadel” in thanks.


End file.
